PESHAWAR, Oct 29: The NWFP government has deployed Frontier Constabulary (FC) at churches in Peshawar and other towns of the province. Paramilitary force has also been deployed on these worship places on Monday.
The provincial home and tribal affairs department has asked the Church of Pakistan, Peshawar office, to send the list of all churches in the province and its adjacent Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) to the government so that security cover could be provided to minorities.
“We have received very extraordinary and specific orders from the higher authorities to shoot terrorists at sight,” a police official said at St John’s Cathedral. The management of the churches in Peshawar has already hired the services of private security agencies since the US started bombing Afghanistan.
Bishop Cecil J. Williams of the Church of Pakistan said that following the Bahawalpur killings they requested the local administration to provide police force to ensure security of the six churches in the provincial capital.
He said the local administration had further tightened security around churches and replaced police with FC after receiving directives from Islamabad.
The city has five main churches — two for Protestants, two for Catholic and one belonging to the 7th Day Adventist. The Christians population in NWFP is around 70,000, of which 15,000 are living in Peshawar.
The Christian community has condemned the attack, which is the first ever terrorist act inside a church in Pakistan, saying that the incident in Bahawalpur was purely a security lapse. They said it was the government’s responsibility to adopt precautionary measures for the protection of churches.
Bishop Cecil J. Williams termed the attack on the church in Bahawalpur an act of terrorism, probably engineered by neighbouring India. He said in the backdrop of US attack on Afghanistan, some fanatic elements were trying to pit Muslims against Christians. “This can be an act of revenge of the Afghans, who lost their lives in recent bombings in Afghanistan,” Bishop Secil remarked.
He said the Christian community condemned this act and would never support terrorism in any part of the world. President Bush must halt operation in Afghanistan, which has so far resulted in the killing of innocent civilians, he said, adding that the issue could not be resolved through violence.
